Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Happy New Year!!

For this post I stole an idea from my favorite blogger Girls Gone Child's Rebecca Woolf.

In 2008 I spent the first hours of the new year hugging my sleeping 6 month old baby since he was the only one celebrating with me since J had to work.
I watched my baby say his first word, take his first steps, celebrate his first birthday, make his first joke and, one scary night, struggle to breath in a hospital bed.
I flew to Sweden twice, had my mom over twice, had my friend Emma visit for the first time.
I went to Ottawa and saw the parliament.
I laughed, I cried, I loved, I fought.
I made a new friend (Julie) and became closer to some other friends.
I worked as a dialogue editor (my first paying job doing sound editing!)
I celebrated my 26th birthday and my 4th wedding anniversary

I can't say that 2008 was a great year... it's been a pretty rough year actually. Not with W, with him this year has been fantastic with all the new things he's learned and the person he's growing into. But me and J had our most difficult year so far as a couple. We fought more than ever and I thinks it's in many parts due to the pressure of parenthood and not spending as much quality time together just the two of us as we should. But things are looking better already so I have hopes for 2009 to be a great year.

I hope you all had a fantastic year and that 2009 will be even better.


Happy New Year!

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

A hairy issue.

check out my cool bird that I can barely see through my hair


If you've ever seen any photos of my little man you've probably noticed his hair. My W has long, luscious hair (for an 18 month old at least) and has never ever in his life had a haircut. Me and J toy with the idea of getting his mane shaped up a bit sometimes but we always decide against the scissors. Why you may ask... well there are many reasons.

1) I like the fact that you can still see the slight change in colour at the tips of his hair that was the black hair he was born with and I can't bear to cut it off.

2) He looks awesome and supercute in his long hair

3) We always said that if we had a little boy we would keep his hair long at first cause it's cute and we really don't like the short "boy haircuts" all the other little boys are sporting.

Hanging out on the toilet with my hair in half a ponytail



On the other hand there are some arguments against our decision too...

1) I can't remember all the times people have called him a girl and looked shocked to find out he's a boy.

2) It's in his eyes all the time and he has now made a habit of running his arms over his face to try to get rid of the hair.

3) I have to resort to putting his hair up with bobby pins and hair ties so he can eat.

with daddy and all my hair in the ponytail



Maybe we're making the wrong decision with keeping his hair long... but did I mention he's sooooo very cute with his long locks!

My mom said to me today that she hopes I don't take him out with his hair in a ponytail. I told her of course not, it's only for at home so he can be more comfortable. Does this mean that as soon as we leave the house my son has to be uncomfortable just because I can't bear cutting of his hair that he was born with?

on the toilet again so cute. guess the red shirt doesn't help the "I'm a boy" cause


Maybe I am a selfish and superficial mom after all... who knew.

I threw in a photo of W dressed like an otter too because he was tooooo cute at the Biodome. Even though I swear never to go there again during school holidays we had a pretty good time. Especially at the interactive part at the end for kids under 7 where you could dress up as said otter or beaver or Inuit.

Look at me! I'm an otter and I caught two birds!!

Saturday, December 27, 2008



Hanging out in the nook under the stairs in the new playroom/guestroom/potential bedroom.





Opening gifts with mommy on Christmas morning





F with the worst Santa ever at the Christmas party with the family.




At the party, hanging out by the gifts.





After opening gifts on Christmas morning...





W's new playroom/guestroom/ potential room if he ever gets a sibling





Wearing Daddy's ugly Christmas sweater. He looks a little like he should be in the Harry Potter films. He loves the sweater, he points to the bears and says nanne (Nalle in Swedish is teddy bear)






In his new and improved bedroom.

Friday, December 26, 2008

Merry Christmas

I hope you all enjoyed your holiday whichever one you celebrated. We had a good Christmas this year, I promise I'll write a long post about it tomorrow when I have some more time. I'll tell you all about the party, the presents and the getting lost in Verdun part.

I just wanted to wish you all a happy holiday season.

Well this is one of the 3 million posts I attempted to write over the holiday and then got interrupted before I had a chance to post it. This past week has been madness. I've baked for 50 plus people (with the help of my lovely niece F) and I cooked, entertained, partied and gotten lost. And we opened many gifts, so many in fact that W didn't want to open some after a while, he was too overwhelmed. He's pretty happy with his new toys now though, and with his new room.

I'll post some photos of the madness tonight after W's gone to bed. So later everyone!

Sunday, December 21, 2008

holiday blues

I started the day today by crying a little. Don't get me wrong I love the holidays and everything about Christmas but it also reminds me of how far away from my family I am. On top of all that emotional stuff W no longer loves me the best. He is now a daddy's boy through and through. He does not want to be with me if Daddy's around and when Daddy leaves he asks for him constantly. My afternoons and evenings now consists of me saying "Daddy's at work, Honey, he'll be back again tomorrow once you wake up" and "Daddy misses you too baby"

I love my Daddy...




It's really not that I don't love that W loves his Daddy as much as his Daddy loves him, but it's hard not to feel rejected when he cries and reaches for Daddy as soon as I try to cuddle him.

To make matters worse he has recently started hitting me too. Not by accident or anything, no. He will pick up a hard item, such as a book, phone (how very Naomi Campbell of him) or a toy and struggle to get it up to my face and then hit me with it. When me and J tell him "No! We do not hit, you have to be gentle with Mamma" he laughs and hits me again.


... and my Daddy loves me!


He did all of this first thing in the morning today and on top of me already feeling homesick and overwhelmed with Christmas prep and worries over how the actual party will turn out, I started crying... which made W cry. So this morning was not a good morning.

So do any of you have any advice? How do I deal with my 18 month old rejecting me and hitting me with hard stuff??

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

18 months





Happy 18 month birthday W.

I love you.

Thank you for bringing so much joy into my life.

Monday, December 15, 2008

Lucia

13Th of December is Lucia so this past Saturday, but since we're not in Sweden right now we celebrated Lucia on Sunday with the Swedish Club of Montreal. It's very nice to get together with all the other displaced Swedes and drink glögg and eat lussekatter and pepparkakor Then dance around the Christmas tree and meet Santa and of course see the main event... Lucia. All the kids in the Swedish school did the Lucia procession and it was adorable. I had goosebumps all over and I can't wait for W to be 3 so he can be a part of the whole thing. Here are some pics





Friday, December 12, 2008

Covered in paint...

This week I've been a busy busy bee. I'm preparing for W's Christmas present. This year he's getting a room. Not a new bedroom, he already has one of those, but a play/relaxing/guest room. It's right across the hall from his bedroom and I've just finished painting it the same lovely pale blue as his room. We were debating other colours but since we failed so miserably with the original colour (hospital green anyone?) we decided to play it safe. I am currently watching paint dry, which is boring! Well the idea is to fix the room up and then tie a ribbon around the door with a big bow and let W open it in the morning of the 24Th (his Grand-Papa needs to sleep in there that evening so it's gotta be in the morning). It's very exciting.

Exciting enough for me to make another trip to IKEA and spend a smaller fortune on all the new stuff for his room and his bedroom. We currently have about 40 cm of snow and the road conditions are appalling, so we were slipping and sliding our way to IKEA and during the odd 3 hours we were there the snow packed up on the car again so I had to dig it out again before leaving.

Speaking of road conditions, me and W were going to a Christmas party last night. It's usually a 20 minute drive but since some little punk decided to prank the University of Montreal in Quebec by setting off a couple of firecrackers so people thought guns were being fired, it took us and hour and a half to get there. Luckily we weren't the last people to arrive, it seemed everyone got stuck in traffic because of the police perimeter around the university. Even a couple of the hosts were late. The party was fun though.

Now I shall return to my painting, I think the paint is finally dry enough for a second layer.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

On Santa's lap

So I mentioned earlier I took W to the mall and made him sit on Santa's lap so we could have cute Christmas pictures. Well here it is.



In other news, we got 25 cm of snow over the last couple of days so I decided to buy a sleigh for W. Turns out he doesn't like the sleigh at all. He screamed bloody murder and trashed around until I gave in and let him get out of it. Then I did everything I could to make him like it. I tried to get him to pull me, I let him drag it empty I even let him sit in it and hit my legs with it so I jumped around screaming in pain (he usually loves that and laughs every time it happens) but nothing. He hated the sleigh so much he actually cried a river when I carried him and dragged the empty sleigh behind us. He wanted me to let it go and just leave it there. Hopefully he'll like it better next time we try it cause I'm sick and tired of dragging the big stroller up and down the stairs and push it through the snow.

This afternoon we're going to an office Christmas party so Joyeux Noël!

Sunday, December 7, 2008

no faith

We've had a busy week so I'll attempt to sum it up. First I had to go to the doctor on Monday for blood tests. I had some done a little while back when we first saw our family doctor and she found too much of something, that I can't remember what it was called. So I had to have more tests done and these ones came back good so all good right. But she called me back on Tuesdays with some other results and she wants me to have this horrible painful test done and I'm pretty sure I don't need it. The thing is I have no faith in my doctor. I usually have lots of faith in doctors, like I trust my ob-gyn and my sons pediatrician completely, but my family doctor I don't trust at all.

It all started when we first went to see her for our first health evaluation back in October. I was sick at the time with a pretty clear case of strep throat, I've had strep throat many many many times in the past so I'm pretty good at self diagnosing. She took a look in my throat but decided that I needed a culture taken and told me I'd get the results in 3-5 days. I already had over 39°C fever and was in a lot of pain but she told me she could do nothing for me until she had the results. That was bad thing #1.

Bad thing #2 was that she does not listen to me or she can't understand me... I don't know which one it is. I live in Quebec which is pretty French and I don't really speak French so sometimes I struggle to make myself understood but I try to make sure that doctors at least understand me cause it's pretty important. I have an IUD and I had some issues with it this summer where it moved and I had to have ultrasounds done to locate it again and stuff but it's all good but you can't see it during a regular exam anymore. I told the doctor this twice before the exam and she still during the exam told me with a concerned look that she could not see the IUD so I had to explain this again. I don't like having to repeat myself over and over again, especially not when it's important.

Bad thing #3 the day after I saw the doctor the first time I had to go to a walk in clinic cause I was so sick and I actually ended up in the emergency room a couple of days later cause I had over 40°C fever for over a week and an eye infection and a case of bronchitis on top of my strep throat. My doctor had not found anything wrong with me. I also had x-rays done and they found a mass in my lung so I then had a CT scan done. It's all good but I still think my doctor should have not dismissed me so fast.

Bad thing #4 when I called her to discuss the options for the results she wants me to have a painful test done for, she refused to listen to me or offer me any options to the test. The test is basically a cancer test and she told me not to worry cause I don't have cancer. Then why do I need to do a painful cancer test?

I do not like her at all and I trust nothing she says so I think I'm going to give up my spot with her and try to find another doctor cause I really see no point in going to see a doctor I will second guess all the time and then seek a second opinion. That's just a waste of resources.

No on to W. He had his 18 months shots on Wednesday and those shots always makes him sick so he's now had a fever for a couple of days.
We went to see Santa on Friday with W and he got to sit on Santa's lap and we got photos of them and it was awfully cute. I'll write more about it tomorrow, now I have TV to attend to.

Monday, December 1, 2008

Weekend

so another weekend gone. This one was filled with a farm visit and crazy stop at a horrible huge department store, fights about food and a trip downtown to check out some books and some christmas decorations.
Sunday was also first of advent so we lit one candle and I enjoyed some glögg and pepparkakor.

So lets talk about the farm. I found this farm online that's pretty close to where we live (only about half an hour by car) they have lots of different animals and they grow organic vegetables which they also sell there. It's on the west tip of the island of Montreal so there are beaches around and a nice forest you can walk around in and stuff. So we went there Saturday morning to look at the animals since W really love animals. The weather was perfect, not to cold and very sunny and almost all the animals were inside the barn so they were all easy to see for W and he could pet some of them. They had ducks, hens, bunnies, horses, ponies, donkeys, cows, sheep and lambs (so cute!), goats and emus. W was so excited and was running around the barn making animal noises and pointing and petting. It was great. We spent about an hour there and then made our way to the department store for food and some shopping.

The department store was packed with angry people, the food was bad and the whole experience was very unpleasant. I broke out in hives half way through. I break out in hives all the time for the weirdest reasons, like change in humidity levels, abrupt change in temperature and sometimes when I get stressed. It's easily fixed by taking some allergy meds but it's still a pain in the bumbum. So we went home.

Yesterday we cleaned the apartment and started fixing up the guest room. Then we went downtown and as soon as we got into the mall W started going "choo choo, choo choo" cause he remembered that there's a big train in there as part of the christmas decoration. Downtown was nice and a good time was had by all.

This week is so far looking a lot less busy then last week so maybe we will all have some time to relax before the real holiday madness begins. Maybe I'll repaint the guest room and get all the decorations up. We'll see.